China: TIME Global Business: China's Big, Big Bird

To get an idea of what happens when China, the workshop of the world, pulls double shifts, travel to Fenghua, a Spartan town 10 miles outside the eastern coastal city of Ningbo. There, Ningbo Bird, a manufacturer of mobile phones, has sprung from obscurity to challenge much larger foreign competitors, such as Nokia and Motorola, in a high-stakes battle for mainland market share. According to some estimates, Bird sells more cell phones in China than any other company, with revenues of approximately $1.4 billion in 2003.

But company president and founder Xu Lihua risks becoming a victim of his own success....